Foreign lessons
Critics often wondered why the UK does not learn more from what other countries do successfully. Is it because we have such an innate sense of superiority that we feel there’s no way that Johnny Foreigner could do things better than we do?
The NHS is envied for universal coverage, but struggles with waiting times and capacity. Germany and the Netherlands use regulated multi-payer insurance systems that maintain universality while introducing competition and efficiency incentives. France achieves better outcomes with a similar budget through stronger primary care gatekeeping and co-payment systems that reduce frivolous demand. Denmark and Sweden have tackled waiting times through patient choice reforms and robust IT infrastructure.
Finland's celebrated education system emphasizes teacher quality over inspection regimes. Teachers are highly trained, trusted professionals rather than data-producers. There is minimal standardized testing before the age of 16, yet outcomes are excellent.
Estonia has become a leader in digital literacy integrated from early years.
The Netherlands offers successful school pluralism, with diverse providers, including religious and pedagogical, within a single publicly funded framework, boosting parental engagement. Sweden allows parents to choose a school, public or private, using state funds on what is effectively a voucher system.
Switzerland and Japan show what integrated, punctual rail networks look like under different models, both public and mixed. Singapore's congestion charging system, introduced decades before London's partial equivalent, is far more comprehensive and effective.
Singapore achieves near-universal homeownership through the Central Provident Fund model, linking housing to long-term savings. The Netherlands uses housing associations with genuine regulatory teeth and long-term planning horizons.
In digital government, Estonia is the benchmark, with nearly all public services digital by default. Citizens file taxes in minutes and bureaucratic friction is minimal. Denmark similarly has mandatory digital correspondence with government, reducing costs dramatically. Britain has made progress, but fragmented legacy IT systems hold it back.
In criminal justice and prisons, Norway and the wider Nordic model treat incarceration as rehabilitative rather than punitive, with dramatically lower reoffending rates of about 20% compared to Britain's roughly 47%. Smaller prisons, better staff ratios, and a focus on reintegrating people into work and housing are the key levers.
For early years and childcare, France's école maternelle provides universal, high-quality early education from age 3. The Nordic countries subsidise childcare heavily, boosting maternal workforce participation and children's developmental outcomes simultaneously. Britain's childcare system is fragmented, expensive, and poorly integrated with education.
Germany's fiscal federalism gives Länder (constituent states) and municipalities genuine tax-raising powers and accountability, avoiding the British problem of councils being both responsible for services and dependent on central grants. Switzerland takes this further with direct democracy at canton level increasing civic engagement.
Britain's challenge is less a lack of good models to copy and more a set of structural barriers: short parliamentary cycles, a centralized state reluctant to devolve, adversarial politics that reverses reforms with each change of government, and chronic underinvestment relative to comparable nations. Learning from abroad requires not just policy borrowing but some of the institutional reforms that make those policies stick.
Madsen Pirie
